For many years, police and other first responders and public safety personnel have had access to video and audio sensors in their vehicles and on their persons. This media data has been of inestimable value for forensic and investigatory analysis, and evidentiary purposes as it provides an unambiguous data log of events that occur during a public safety operation or action.
Police may have video and audio devices built into their vehicles to observe the environment of an operation or action; watchdog systems built into the electronics of their vehicles to determine speed, location, and other properties; sensors connected to their sirens and lights to record when they are deployed; detection equipment and video sensors built into their utility belts and related equipment that can record when they unholster their pepper spray, tasers, or firearms or when they release the safety features of their firearms and discharge them.
Typically, this data is not available for real-time dissemination to other remote field officers or central command to provide real-time warning of a dangerous situation or to help with real-time coordination of a public safety operation. This valuable sensor information may be left unreviewed or recorded on a storage system mounted within a vehicle and is later conveyed to a central station at the end of a shift when the officer and his her vehicle have returned to a precinct parking facility.